Do Africans Want Peace Corps Volunteers?

Most tourists use the city of Tambacounda as a pitstop as they traverse Senegal. There's little to see or do in town. There are even fewer touristic sites in the surrounding villages. Still, sometimes it's the unpopular destinations that yield the most interesting stories.

The United States Peace Corps operates in safe, poor African countries. It avoids dangerous regions. The Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in Tambacounda invited me to celebrate the Fourth of July with them. We had no fireworks but we shared some hotdogs and Doritos under an American flag. I asked them, “Is the Peace Corps useful in Senegal?”

One PCV said that they had trouble convincing locals to plant their own crops because they knew a supply of free food would be delivered anyway. She still felt that “the benefits outweigh the cost.”

Some foreigners think the PCVs are just young spies. There’s some truth to that. Peter, another PCV, said, “The Ghana USAID Director said that he uses PCVs to know what’s really going on. Short-term, there are probably better ways to accomplish the goals. But long-term, the $100,000 for two years pays off. You’re investing in Americans.”

How do you know when you're dealing with a useful volunteer organization or Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)?

Katie Letheren, who has worked with many NGOs, said:

One major thing to look at is how locals are involved. Are they being trained to run it themselves or are they always in support roles while the foreigners run it? I get the feeling that a lot are just altruistic projects for people to come take a year off and work, but they aren’t really committed to changing the local situation fully, which requires expanding your scope, which oftentimes people aren’t willing to do. For example, if a health NGO is not addressing the poverty that’s causing the health problems, then it’s just a Band-Aid. People with TB or HIV are unlikely to get better if their financial situation doesn’t improve.

PCVs are usually in their 20s. They usually start off idealistically and end cynically.

When they begin their two-year tour of duty, they run around enthusiastically trying to “fix” all sorts of “problems.” They are frustrated to see African men sitting underneath a tree all day while the young PCVs hustle to “save” the village.

Have a seat. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

At the end of their two years, you’ll often find the PCVs languidly sitting next to an old man under the same mango tree.

The child looks everywhere and often sees nothing, but the old man sitting on the ground sees everything. — Senegalese proverb

Over 30 years ago, TheLos Angeles Times’ Africa correspondent wrote something I could have written today.

“Friends would ask, ‘But what is Africa really like?’ The best answer was ‘Different.’ The poverty is enormous and yet only by Western standards would you call the rural African poor. He has all the things needed to sustain him—food, clothing, a modest shelter, family love. Health conditions are appalling, but most Africans have access to better medical facilities than they did 30 years ago. The phones that don’t work and the clocks that are ignored may ruffle an American visitor but they don’t affect the African’s life much at all.”[i]

Just because Africans seem so blasé about PCVs doesn’t mean they don’t love them. Nine out of 10 Senegalese want more foreign aid. Two-thirds of Africans surveyed by Pew Research in 2015 felt the same way.

Only South Africans were divided about whether they need more or less aid. Seven in 10 Africans were either “very confident” or “somewhat confident” that the foreign aid organizations will “help solve major problems in our country.”

Showing their love for paternalistic governments, they are even more confident (78%) that their national government will solve big problems.

Some disagree. In 2002, Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade said, “I’ve never seen a country develop itself through aid or credit. Countries that have developed—in Europe, America, Japan, Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea and Singapore—have all believed in free markets. There is no mystery there. Africa took the wrong road after independence.”

The problem is that 12 years after those wise words, 74 percent of Senegalese were still “dissatisfied with the availability of quality healthcare,” according to a Gallup poll. That was the worst rate in Africa.

For Senegal to provide outstanding aid-free healthcare, it will need to do a better job at copying the best practices of the countries that ex-President Wade listed.

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Corrections: The original article gave an incorrect acronym for the Peace Corps Volunteers. It's not PVC, it's PCV. The original article stated referred to David Lamb as an NY Times reporter; he was an LA Times reporter. Lastly, the article has clarified that the Peace Corps is not NGO.